Ringworld's Children

'Its feeding him boosterspice, isnt it?'

That ancient trademark — 'Yah. Hes never had boosterspice before. I think hes old, Roxanny. Hell eat up the whole supply.'

'Tanj. That would have been my boosterspice supply. All right, Luis, put your hands on the controls.'

'We cant fly in this position. We should get into seats.'

'I know.' She set his hands on the flight stick and the keypad. She turned on the lift. Then she pushed him hard in the chest. He flew backward into space.

He fell two meters onto rock. A sea of pain washed over him. He couldnt breathe. He saw the flycycle lift, and pause.

'Youre Louis Wu,' Roxanny said, leaning over from the aft seat to meet his eyes. 'Youre a quarter of a thousand years old. You were the servant of a Piersons puppeteer until you changed masters, and what you serve now I wouldnt care to describe—'

Groaning, Louis rolled to his knees, then managed to stand. He stretched up, but the flycycle was floating out of reach. The controls shouldnt have served other hands than his. Maybe Proserpina had hacked the security system so she could use it herself.

Louis asked again. 'What is this?'

'I made Proserpina tell me, but I guessed first, Louis. Theres just too much wrong with the way you act. You played me for a fool—'

'No, Roxanny, no. I liked being treated like a kid, being young again. No responsibility! Roxanny—' Louis Wu was fleeing from the ARM. He couldnt tell her that. There were other things she couldnt know and still run loose. He said, 'I love you.'

She pointed at a mass that was still red hot. 'What is that?'

'A service stack. Float plates from… elsewhere on the Ring.'

'What about the weapons? Those.'

'Dont know.' He could guess. Tunesmith must have lost a service stack exploring the Citadel. Hed armed the next one and invaded again, and got this far.

'And that silver cap?'

He couldnt answer.

'Thats a puppeteer stepping disk, isnt it? And its pumping light and bullets and whatever else falls on it into some other space. That means its still working, and thats why its still working—'

'Dangerous! Roxanny, you have no idea where it leads!'

'All the things you lied about! I am not a child.' Roxanny studied him. 'I didnt believe her. You didnt make love like an older man. So I tried you out, and you do.'

'How could you—'

'There was a teacher.'

'Roxanny—'

'Well, we seem to be a target here. I think Ill just try it.' The flycycle lifted, slid sideways.

The pile of ruined lift plates glowed dull red. The plate at the top was dull silver. Roxanny dropped the flycycle onto it and was gone.

She was upside down and falling. Roxannys breath streamed out in a long silent scream. She fell along smooth, vertical, red rock toward ochre sand a long way down. Past her feet was navy blue sky touched with pink.

Then the flycycle righted itself and began to rise again — but her scream remained. The flycycle had emerged on Mars with the sonic fold off. In a vacuum you scream, or else your lungs rupture.

Mars. Ridiculous. Insane. But she knew this place, shed trained on Mars. Her spinning senses found the Arch, the Ringworld rising over itself. So she wasnt quite crazy, it was the Map of Mars on the Great Ocean halfway round the Ringworld. Even so, she and Wembleth would be dead in minutes, in an atmosphere that would be poison if it werent too thin to matter.

The blood that still streamed from her nose was foaming. Wembleths mouth was open in a long scream; he clutched the flycycle controls as if throttling them.

The flycycle eased up above a single silver plate like the one theyd come through: an inverted stepping disk.

Wembleth reached out, pulling at the umbilicals that attached him to the flycycles doc. He swung a fist at the edge of the stepping disk. The rim popped up on a hardware keyboard. His fist pounded the buttons. He twisted flycycle controls, and the vehicle dropped, twisted, and rose to touch the stepping disks undersurface.

There was air and baby blue sky.

Roxanny sucked air, gasped, gasped. She said, 'Perfect,' her throat a raw whisper. She hugged Wembleth. 'Perfect. You saved us. That thing would have come after us. Proserpina. And Luis. Louis Wu.' After a long moment she lifted her head. 'You just slammed touch points at random, didnt you? I wonder where we are.'

She could see everything there was of it. They were on a tiny island in the midst of a flat, calm sea. Nothing but scrub was growing here. It seemed a safe place to leave a stepping disk and its stack of lift plates.

Roxanny popped the cover and tapped touch points. 'There,' she said. 'Lets see them find us now.'

Louis tottered toward the service stack. Hed do better with a walking stick or a crutch. He stopped where the heat was too much. He had to follow her… but he couldnt get close. He sat down to think.

Jump to the stepping disk from a higher ramp? Yah, stet.

The service stack wouldnt be red hot forever… but it would take a long time to cool down. A day, two? Hed have to feed himself while he waited.

In a minute hed start climbing toward the hanging garden.

Sputtering light woke him. Hed dozed, or fainted. He watched without surprise as Proserpinas ship descended. Lasers stuttered from a dozen directions. The sunfish ship flickered. Then all the lasers died in fiery puffballs, and the big sunfish ship hovered above him.

Hanuman, in full pressure gear, emerged from the opening hatch.

'They went through there,' Louis called. 'I have to catch them, but its too hot. Wait!'

Hanuman jumped. He landed on the stepping disk and was gone.

What had turned it on, anyway? Plasma heat? A random bullet? Must have been something like that. Why would Tunesmith send a service stack in here with the stepping disk running? Louis saw Proserpina in the hatch, wearing a pressure suit. He called, 'Watch out, its still going!'

She dropped onto the stepping disk and was gone.

The sunfish ship turned, questing blindly. It lifted toward the hole in the wall, outside and gone.

Louis wondered how much trouble he was in.

Everyone had left him. He hadnt felt this alone since… he couldnt remember. Roxanny had left him. How would he ever explain… or did she understand too well?

Hed thought of her as his woman, decreed by fate, the only Homo sapiens woman in a vastness of three million worlds.

Shed taken the flycycle. Proserpina had programmed the sunfish ship to take itself home. Louis was on foot. That was good news and bad. It was a futz of a long way to a food source, but it was all downhill. Hunger wouldnt kill him. The Penultimates defenses wouldnt kill him, if he believed Roxannys analysis: he would be seen as a wandering Homo habilis. He was nearly naked already.

But he had to find water sooner than that.

Thered be water to feed that vast green veldt. Even so, there was water closer: not far above his head. His eye could follow ramps around and up and over to the hanging gardens.

Louis began to walk. Nothing shot at him. Maybe Proserpina had shut down the rest of the Penultimates